Writing & Theory

Of Jig-Saw Plots and Character Backstories

May 5, 2013 by Rhonda 2 Comments

“…the actions of your characters need to have psychological validity and, at the very least, a visible connection to some behavior explanation with roots in the past. Backstory is how you make that happen.”

– Larry Brooks, Story Engineering

In a scene between mystery writer Harriet Vane and Lord Peter Wimsey in Dorothy Sayer’s Gaudy Night, Harriet laments that her latest novel has “gone sticky.” The plot is solid, but the characters are lacking, making some of their actions unbelievable. Lord Peter suggests an alteration to the main character’s backstory, but Harriet objects:

“But if I give Wilfrid all those violent and lifelike feelings, he’ll throw the whole book out of balance.”

“You would have to abandon the jig-saw kind of story and write a book about human beings for a change.”

“I’m afraid to try that, Peter. It might go too near the bone.”

“It might be the wisest thing you could do.”

“Write it out and get rid of it.”

“Yes.”

“I’ll think about that. It would hurt like hell.”

“What would that matter, if it made a good book?”

Later on, Harriet hears the same criticism from the Oxford dons she’s staying with: that her stories are not “psychological,” that they are more concerned with “fact” and, as Lord Peter says, are “jig-saw” stories. By this, we understand that Harriet’s stories are plot-driven, that as a mystery writer, she’s concerned with the hows, whens, and wheres of the whodunit more than she is with the whys.

One image of my protagonist, Ludmila (Mila) Simonova. This woman is a little bit too plump. but the expression in the face is right. (Boyaryshinya, Konstantin Makovsky)

One image of my protagonist, Ludmila (Mila) Simonova. This woman is a little bit too plump, but the expression in the face is right. (Boyaryshnya, Konstantin Makovsky)

I mention this because I, too, have had to stop and work on my protagonist’s backstory. The plot I worked out for class is for the most part sufficient, but my protagonist, Mila, lacked clear motivation for achieving her goals. Knowing that motivation is often found in the backstory, I finally sat down the other day to hash out some of the details of Mila’s past life. I typed, stream-of-consciousness style, allowing the details of an important backstory event of which I only had a nascent impression to reveal themselves, and…

BAM.

Major event. Major trauma. Major impact on the character. Major inner demon to overcome. And, wouldn’t you know it, the event gave me a new character – an antagonist (or antagonistic) character – for the novel itself. He has to be there now. It just makes sense.

It’s a great development, but, to echo Harriet, it’s thrown the whole book out of balance. Now I have to rework the plot to accommodate both the past event and the new character. The goals are the same, but the way Mila will work toward her goals must change. The ground is shifting beneath my feet on the eve of the week I had hoped to start drafting scenes and chapters.

Am I discouraged? In part, yes. My plans have altered; I have to plot the story out, again, just when I thought I was ready to write. But “what would that matter, if it made a good book?”

Lord Peter reminds me that, in working to make my plot points fit together, I can’t lose sight of my characters. The character’s actions might make the plot “work,” but if they make no sense on a human level, then the jig-saw won’t come together, no matter how much I might try to shove and manipulate the pieces. Character drives plot, and plot drives character; the two cannot be separated.

Going “near the bone,” as Harriet says, is risky. It reaches into those vulnerable parts of ourselves that we’d rather let alone. But perhaps this is the wisest thing we can do. Our stories require it.

Image Credit: WikiCommons

Filed Under: Current Projects, Writing & Theory Tagged With: Backstory, Character, Character Development, Development, Dorothy Sayers, Larry Brooks, Novel, Novel Writing, Plot, Plotting, Psychology

Austen, Speare, or Something Else? Choosing a Mentor Novel

December 14, 2012 by Rhonda 5 Comments

Novelists out there: Ever been asked to choose a “mentor” novel?

The intensive novel writing class I begin soon requires that I choose a mentor novel. This is a novel that I have already read and loved for its style, genre, tone, plotting, humor, language, or whatever reason, and wish to emulate in some way.

Question is, what to choose? What novels are educative for the writer learning her craft?

I can say what will not work. My preference might be the Eliots and Tolstoys, but Middlemarch and War and Peace wouldn’t make good mentor novels. At least, good mentor novels for the likes of me. Why? They are too long and too complex. Normally, as a reader, I would consider these to be good qualities in a novel. Who doesn’t love delving into the delightful complexities of an epic masterpiece? But they fail as mentor novels because a writer would be hard-pressed to get their minds around the structure of those books. And getting our minds around the structure of a book is what having a mentor novel is all about.

That being said, I’m toying with two novels right now: Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice and The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare.

Pride and Prejudice is an easy, obvious choice. I love Austen’s novels and I know them well (maybe a little too well). She’s a master at characterization, and emulating her would also help me achieve my near-impossible goal of being funny (considering that I’ve boldly opined on the lack of humor in new Catholic literature). Perhaps, with Austen’s help, I’ll dream up another Mr. Collins?

Pinched from here.

One can only hope.

My one objection to using Pride and Prejudice is that it’s everyone’s mentor novel. Need proof? The Elizabeth Theory. Contemporary fiction has way, way too many Elizabeth knockoffs. Other than Shakespeare’s Beatrice (Much Ado About Nothing), I cannot think of a single female literary character prior to P&P with the temperament and talent of an Elizabeth Bennett. She became a type when she arrived on the scene – a beloved and much imitated type – and since then our female characters are measured according to the Pride and Prejudice standard.

My more pressing goal, however, is to work on plotting, and for that I can think of no better example than the Newbury Award winning novel The Witch of Blackbird Pond. That Disney hasn’t already turned it into a movie is surprising, considering its vast popularity with fifth-grade teachers. It’s a compelling and tightly written story set in colonial Connecticut, and the opening chapters are near perfection in its hook, establishment of the premise, characterization, scene structure, and foreshadowing. And, being a children’s story, the plot is easier to analyze. Kit is another Elizabeth Bennett type, of course, but otherwise it’d be a great book to imitate.

How about you? What novel (or book, for you non-fiction writers) would you choose as a mentor novel, and why?

Filed Under: Current Projects, Writing & Theory Tagged With: Books, Characters, children's books, Elizabeth George Speare, fiction, Jane Austen, literary, Novel, stories, storytelling, Writers, Writing & Theory

Writer’s Notebook, 11/27/12: Opposite Day! And a Few Resources

November 27, 2012 by Rhonda 2 Comments

I mentioned in a recent Writer’s Notebook update that I had given up on writing the novel and turned to a non-fiction project. That I had hit the end of my innate abilities and was waiting for school to start. That this non-fiction project finally had context and relevancy and that it was time for it to begin.

I told the truth, but it’s also possible that I had a case of writer’s block. In any case, I had a breakthrough the other day regarding the novel, meaning that I’m back at it again.

The novel has two main characters – two sisters, to be precise. The older sister, Lisa, is lovable and lovely but a real piece of cuckoo! work underneath her outer shell of rational and religious sensibilities. In my early morning mental ramblings the other day, between dreamland and wakey-time, I understood that her reaction to the premise of the plot was not what I thought it was.

In fact, it’s practically the opposite.

Opposite!

You don’t have to be a storyteller to realize how that changes everything. Though, fortuitously, it does bring the plot line back around to my original conception, over a year ago. At least I’m not starting from scratch.

Also fortuitous is the renewed desire this realization has given me to get back to work. Bless my soul, now I have two active projects going, if you don’t count blogging. Perhaps, someday (please, Lord?), I’ll finish one of them. Finis, The End, All’s Well That Ends Well, Q.E.D. It’d sure be nice.

Feeling refreshed, my first stop was to the ever-helpful blog Wordplay: Helping Writers Become Authors, hosted by author K.M. Weiland. My foremost burning question at this point is How on earth do I outline a novel? Because I’m sure spinning my wheels, writing a ton of copy that I’m going to set aside and probably never use.

(If you’re tuning in for the first time, you must know that I don’t know what the begeebers I’m doing.)

It seems like a simple enough question to answer, but, turns out, not so much. I figured Weiland would have an answer, and she did… in the form of a book. That’s how much one can say about the benefits and methods of outlining.

So, there’s that. I’ll read her book and start outlining the (let’s not curse now!) thing.

With regards non-fiction, one of the best resources I’ve found for writers is Jeff Goins. He has a motivational + marketing savvy ethos which I actually appreciate a lot. I need help staying motivated to write and being diligent, and I’ll need help with the business side of writing. Other people are good at it and those people tell people like me what to do.

What impresses me is that Jeff Goins holds down a full-time job in addition to all this writing he does. He acknowledged in one of his talks that he makes about $3,500/month from his Kindle sales. Apparently it’s enough to allow his wife to stay at home with their son, but not quite enough to quit his 9-to-5 gig — and perhaps he doesn’t want to quit. How would I know? Anyway, here at A Naptime Novelist, we applaud people who manage to do this crazy writing thing in odd circumstances and at odd times. I admire his work ethic and envy his word counts.

Worst of all, now I have no excuse for not getting both the fic and non-fic projects done. Gee, thanks, Mr. Goins.

Filed Under: Current Projects, Writing & Theory Tagged With: Characters, fiction, non-fiction, Novel, Outlining, Plot, Resources, storytelling, writer's block, Writer's Notebook, Writers, Writing & Theory

What the Word of God Does – and What Catholic Writers Do

November 19, 2012 by Rhonda 9 Comments

What does it mean that Christ is the Word of God?

All good gifts come from above. Words are my gift from above, originating in their form with the Word Himself and employed by this imperfect creature.

Words bubble up and pour forth like gas from champagne. When generous with myself, I call it verbosity. Otherwise, I call it rambling. (After I’ve been rambling, unchecked, I always feel as though I had drunk too much champagne – a bit woozy and a bit embarrassed.)

The words want to run wild without direction, but I must build my strength, strap thick ruddy leather to the bits at their frothing mouths, and drive those words toward the completion of a finished product.

To what end? Purity. “Redemption comes to us above all through the blood of his cross, but this mystery is at work through Christ’s entire life:

– already in his Incarnation through which by becoming poor he enriches us with his poverty;

– in his hidden life which by his submission atones for our disobedience;

– in his word which purifies its hearers;

– in his healings and exorcisms by which ‘he took our infirmities and bore our diseases’;

– and in his Resurrection by which he justifies us. (CCC 517)

When we are given the gift of words – and most of us have this gift in some form – we are participating in Christ’s redemptive work. His words purified his hearers. My words must come into conformity with this purpose. We write to purify ourselves and others.

This isn’t to say that I must never depict what is not-pure, that is, evil. That would be ludicrous. No, instead I must be ready to depict evil as truthfully as I can, in all its horror, in all its might, and with all its consequences. Only then will I have art, and only then will art reveal evil so as to purify us from it.

And this isn’t to say that my work cannot have nuance – another ludicrous position. Some, in advocating for clearer lines of good and evil for the sake of cultivating the Christian imagination, have indeed sacrificed nuance. No. Instead, I must be ready to depict human nature as truthfully as I can, and in all its messiness. Only then will I have art, and only then will art serve the purpose of showing us to ourselves, and of showing God’s grace as the redemption is really is – infinitely higher and more powerful than our bumbling attempts at self-justification.

Also, this isn’t to say that we cannot take humor in man’s foibles and fallacies. Again, ludicrous. The joy and mirth that bubbles forth from the depths of God’s delight must find its place in art. Where is the humor in contemporary Catholic literature? Are we so deadly serious about our commitment to the revitalization of Catholic culture that we have forgotten to smile? When will I open Dappled Things and find a raucous, rollicking piece that splits my sides? Have we forgotten that laughter opens our hearts to truth?

Whatever our words, they are words for the sake of purification. In a sense they become His redeeming words. Or, perhaps, they were His words all along.

My words, wild and untamed and unlearned as they are, must come closer and closer to their source in the Word. The waters overflow, and I must form the banks of the river and direct them toward pools of purity, where a writer meets her readers, to giggle and splash in ice-cold refreshment.

Image Credit: WikiCommons